The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 10, 2024
Ephesians 2:1-10
Rethinking Religion—
Rethinking the Solution to Sin!
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
“Houston, we have a problem.” Are you familiar with that statement? I can still see Tom Hanks speaking that line in the movie, Apollo 13. The movie was based upon an incident that occurred in real life. On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was supposed to be the third lunar landing in American history, but on the third day of a week-long mission one of the oxygen tanks aboard the spaceship called Odyssey exploded. With their ship now crippled both the crew on board and the crew on the ground frantically tried to figure out a solution to their problem— a solution that would bring the astronauts safely back to earth. While it was a harrowing process, everyone involved in the mission began to think and rethink how to use whatever was available on the spacecraft to come up with a solution. Thankfully, it worked!
Just last month a company called Intuitive Machines launched a lunar lander called Odysseus aboard a SpaceX rocket. After more than 50 years an American spacecraft was going to land on the moon. However, in yet another nail-biting situation Intuitive Machines realized that Odysseus had a faulty piece of navigation equipment. The company’s engineers had to quickly come up with a solution so that the mission was not a failure. Their solution was to “hack” the navigation system to patch in an experimental piece of equipment that happened to be on board— and it worked! Odysseus successfully landed on the moon! Unfortunately, even though they come up with a solution to one problem, they quickly realized that they had another problem— for which there was no solution. As Odysseus landed on the moon one of its legs “tripped” on a rock and it fell on its side.
These two examples reveal to us that we human beings are amazing when it comes to figuring out how to take a dream and turn it into reality. And when confronted with the unexpected we are amazing at coming up with a solution to what appears to be an unsolvable problem. Tragically, that amazing ability to come up with a solution to the problems that we face fails miserably when it comes to our biggest problem— sin! Since sin and its consequences is the ultimate problem that each and every human being faces, and since it is impossible for us to come up with a solution to the problem of sin, God has provided The Solution for us! Today as we focus our attention on God’s solution to our problem, let’s see how this portion of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians gives us an opportunity to: Rethink the Solution to Sin!
Under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit Paul describes for us in graphic detail the problem of sin. Look at verses one to three of our text. Paul writes, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
These powerful words help us to understand what we look like from God’s perspective— and it is not good, my friends! When the holy, just and perfect God looks at us He sees that we are spiritually dead, disobedient, in captivity to Satan, and alienated from the one true God. He sees that we are living our life in a way that strives to gratify the “cravings of our sinful nature.” He sees that our focus in life is on following the “desires” and the “thoughts” of our sinful nature. The result of this is that from God’s perspective we are born “objects of wrath.”
What is the solution to this problem— the problem of sin? Satan, the “ruler of the kingdom of the air,” tries to convince us that it’s not really as bad as it seems. Satan tries to convince us that the “solution” to the “problem” of sin is that we do something. If our sins begin to bother us we look around until we find someone who is way worse than us and then try to find comfort in telling ourselves, “Well, at least I’m not as ‘bad’ as they are!” Satan will also try to convince us that if something we did or something we did not do is keeping us up at night then we need to find a way to balance out the scales of justice. And if none of that calms our conscience, Satan will tell us, “Just do the best you can and hope that it is good enough.” But deep down inside we know. Deep down inside we realize that our solutions to the problem of sin are always going to be a complete and utter failure.
The opening portion of this text leaves us trembling under God’s mighty judgment. There is nothing that we who are “dead in our transgressions and sins,” there is nothing that we who are “following the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air,” there is nothing that we who are “disobedient…objects of wrath”— there is nothing that we can do to solve the most serious problem we have— sin!
Thankfully, God the Holy Spirit has His servant Paul proclaim an amazing powerful contrast to the opening portion of our text! The Solution to the problem of sin is found in verses four and five, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— it is by grace you have been saved.”
It is vitally important for us to recognize that Paul is not describing what we should be. Paul is not describing what we can be. Paul is describing what we are! God raised us up from being spiritually “dead” and God “made us alive with Christ.” Why did God do this for us? Was it because God saw some “good” deep down inside of us? Was it because God saw that we had the “potential” to do great things for Him? No! We were “dead in our transgressions and sins”! We were spiritual corpses who had no ability whatsoever to provide ourselves with a solution to the problem of sin! No, my friends, the solution to the problem of sin is solely the result of God’s “great love for us,” God’s “rich mercy,” and God’s amazing “grace”!
It is important that troubled sinners, doubting sinners, sinners who are feeling the burden of their guilt, sinners whose consciences are keeping them up at night— it is important for sinners like us to be reassured that saving faith and eternal life are the result of the “love” and the “mercy” and the “grace” of our God. “Love”— “agape love”— is the love that acts. It is the love that is self-sacrificing. It is the love that is unconditional. “Mercy” is the love that sees a need and then responds to that need. “Grace” is the love that acts regardless of what it sees in the object. If mercy is love that is motivated by the pitiable condition of the object, grace is the love that is only motivated by the Source— not the object. “Mercy,” “grace” and “love” all work together to describe the absolutely unmerited, undeserved, and unconditional gift that God has given to us, namely, The solution to the problem of sin!
The Holy Spirit, however, is not finished! It gets even better when He has Paul say to us, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” At first glance these words sound rather confusing. Paul gives the impression that all of these things have already happened! That’s because from God’s perspective they have already happened! The moment we were given the gift of saving faith in our heart— whether it was through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism when we were an infant or through the power of God’s holy Word when we were an adult— the moment we were given the gift of saving faith in our heart everything Paul describes for us here is applied to us on a personal individual level.
Because of God’s “great love for us,” because of God’s “rich mercy” and because of God’s “grace” He has “raised us up with Christ” and He has “seated us with him in the heavenly realms.” This is a testimony to God’s faithfulness. This is a testimony to the certainty of what our God has promised to us. Look at it this way: What our God has promised for us in eternity is as good as done in the present!
God’s goal in giving us this confidence is found in Paul’s words, “…in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Just as we need to rethink the solution to the problem of sin, so also there are other people who may not even realize that they need to rethink the solution to the problem of sin. We can certainly tell them about God’s grace and how He has freely provided the solution to sin, but it is even better when we demonstrate the impact that God’s solution to sin, the impact that God’s “love” and God’s “mercy” and God’s “grace” has had on our hearts and in our lives! God wants us to be a beacon in this dark world, my friends— a beacon that will draw other people to see and to experience God’s solution to their greatest problem, the problem of sin!
Because God’s solution to the problem of sin is so very important and because God’s solution to the problem of sin is so very different from any solutions we try to come up with on our own, God the Holy Spirit has the apostle Paul put God’s solution to the problem of sin into a clear, simple, powerful statement. Look at the familiar words of verses eight and nine, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
If John 3:16 is the Gospel in a “nutshell,” Ephesians 2:8, 9 are God’s solution to the problem of sin in a “nutshell.” We are saved purely by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone! Does this actually mean that there is nothing we need to do in order to be saved for all of eternity? Yes it does! In fact, this means that there is nothing that we can do to be saved. Think it through, my friends. God has already had Paul reveal to us that by nature we are “dead in our transgressions and sins,” we are “disobedient,” we were “by nature objects of wrath.” It was impossible for us to do anything to make up for even one of our sins much less all of our sins. It was impossible for us to “decide” that we wanted to invite Jesus to come into our hearts. Paul emphasizes this same truth when he says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Does this mean that “good works” have absolutely no role, no place, in the life of a Christian? No it does not. Look at the closing verse of our text. Paul writes, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Every Chrisitan is the result of God’s “workmanship.” Every Chrisitan is someone who has been “created in Christ Jesus.” When we recognize that we are who we are because of God’s “work” and God’s “creative” power then our response will be to gladly “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
This is what is called our life of sanctification— openly living the faith that God has created in our hearts. This is why Jesus tells us, “Likewise every good tree bears good fruit” (Matthew 7:17). We need to remember, however, that the “good fruit” that we produce in our lives will vary from one Christian to the next. We also need to remember that the “good fruit” that we produce in our lives does not have to be something “spectacular”! The little things that we do for other people— without expecting anything in return; faithfully taking care of our family; raising our children to love and trust in Jesus as their Lord; regularly attending the worship services where we hear God’s holy Word and receive God’s holy Supper— there are endless ways to express our love for God and our thankfulness to God simply by the way we live our lives. As Paul reminds us, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Even in our fallen condition we human beings have an amazing ability to come up with solutions to the problems that we face in life. We need to realize, however, that because by nature we are born spiritually “dead,” spiritually “disobedient,” and spiritually “objects of God’s wrath” any and every solution we come up with for the problem of sin will fail— miserably!
Praise God that He has revealed to us His solution to the problem of sin! Praise God that the gift of saving faith which He has created in our hearts enables us to lift up our eyes to the cross o Calvary’s hill and rejoice in knowing that God’s solution to the problem of sin is found in the words, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
To God be the glory!
Amen